Half of Black Caucus Signs on to Israeli Stance on Syria, in Defiance of Black Public Opinion
The Congressional Black Caucus sides with its party’s war mongers and in fear of the Israel lobby, while large Black majorities believe Israel is neither an ally nor a friend.
“The Black Caucus’ tolerance of apartheid Israel’s barbarism is infinite.”
Nearly 400 members of the U.S. House and Senate signed a letterurging President Trump to keep U.S. troops in Syria – against the wishes of the sovereign government of that country and therefore, in gross violation of international law -- and to increase sanctions against Russia for assisting the Syrian government in its battle against Islamic jihadists. Among the signers were 26 of the 51 Black voting members of the House and the two Black U.S. senators that are running for president, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.
Nobody except the Israel lobby gets that kind of immediate obeisance from the Congress. Tel Aviv’s interests top the letter’s list of bullet-points: “Underscore Israel’s right to self-defense.” The letter baldly lobbies to increase the annual billions in U.S. subsidies to Israel’s bloated and hyper-aggressive, nuclear-armed military. “We must also look for ways to augment our support in the context of the current 10-year Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Israel,” the letter reads, “ and to ensure that Israel has access to the resources and materiel it needs to defend itself against the threats it faces on its northern border.”
“Tel Aviv’s interests top the letter’s list of bullet-points.”
The massive sign-on was organized to pressure Trump into even more aggressive actions against Iran, and to prevent the president from fulfilling his oft-repeated wish to withdraw from Syria, now that the ISIS “caliphate” has been shattered and al-Qaida’s legions are bottled up in Idlib province, under siege by the Syrian Army. Israel has provided arms and assistance to both terrorist factions, as have Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Britain, France -- and the United States, the imperial grandmaster of the jihadist offensive that began in 2011 against Libya (see “U.S. Protects Jihadists in Syria,” BAR). Libya was plunged into barbarism and Syria is in ruins, with half a million dead and a third of the country displaced. Iraq, still reeling from Washington’s 2003 “Shock and Awe” and occupation, has been savaged yet again by the West’s jihadist proxies, with its second largest city, Mosul, flattened by U.S. bombs and artillery. Yet, three-quarters of the U.S. Congress last week signed on to the insane statement that the region has “been destabilized by Iranian regime’s threatening behavior.”
“The United States was the imperial grandmaster of the jihadist offensive that began in 2011.”
Were it not for Iranian and Lebanese Shiite militias and Russia’s 2015 intervention, Syria’s secular government would have fallen to the U.S.-sponsored jihadist legions, at which point the U.S. and allied governments, including Israel, would have occupied the region, ostensibly to restore order and control the head-chopping Islamic warriors. Even in the current circumstances, Israel recently seized the opportunity to formally claim sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied by the Zionists in the 1967 war, and the U.S. got the chance to move 5,000 troops back into Iraq to aid in the fight against ISIS, the “rogue” faction of al-Qaida that rejected the West’s instructions to blend in with other Islamist fighters and stick to the mission of regime change in Syria.
Had President Obama’s 2011 war plan been successful, Syria would have been balkanized into mini-states ruled by warlords beholden to the U.S. and its regional allies, and Lebanon would be wracked by renewed civil war, or under the discipline of constant Israeli air strikes, or both. Iraqi Kurdistan, with its huge oil reserves and deep ties to Israel, would have seceded, and U.S. troops would be back in multi-divisional force in Iraq at the request of a terrified central government. Iran would be surrounded. The stage would then be set to empower the U.S. to cut off China’s access to Middle Eastern (and even central Asian) energy supplies – which was the larger purpose of Obama’s “smart war” of “humanitarian" intervention plus jihadist proxies, his slickly demonic contribution to the Great Imperial Game.
“Three-quarters of the U.S. Congress signed on to the insane statement that the region has “been destabilized by Iranian regime’s threatening behavior.”
If the Congressional Black Caucus had properly understood that last week’s letter was asking them to help rescue the remnants of the First Black President’s grand plan, they might have signed on in even greater numbers. Even so, the 26 signatories included John Lewis, the “soul” of the Caucus (or “de Lawd,” as he is derisively referred to in Atlanta), who is usually part of the ten or twelve Black Caucus members that can still be counted on to vote against some of the most blatantly warlike measures. Lewis sensed that the letter was an Israeli lobby priority, as did his Black Caucus colleagues, who are listed below in order of their signing.
James Clyburn (SC)
Hakeem Jeffries (NY)
Gregory Meeks (NY)
Karen Bass (CA)
Colin Allred (TX)
Yvette Clarke (NY)
Elijah Cummings (MD)
Donald Payne (NJ)
Val Demings (FL)
David Scott (GA)
John Lewis (GA)
Donald McEachin (VA)
Sheila Jackson Le (TX)
G.K. Butterfield (NC)
Danny Davis (IL)
Joyce Beatty (OH)
Sanford Bishop (GA)
Alma Adams (NC)
Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ)
Marc Veasey (TX)
Alcee Hastings (FL)
Emanuel Cleaver (MO)
Frederica Wilson (FL)
Steven Horsford (NV)
Robin Kelly (IL)
Antonio Delgado (NY)
Poll Shows Black People Don’t Think of Israel as a Friend or Ally
The 26 lawmakers make up just over half of the 51 Black voting members of the House. (The delegates from Washington, DC, and the U.S. Virgin Islands cannot vote on the House floor.) On the Senate side, presidential candidates Cory Booker and Kamala Harris have always been in the Israel lobby’s pocket. In their haste to make a splash with headlines around the world proclaiming “Nearly 400 Lawmakers Call on Trump to Address Threats in Syria,” the letter’s handlers may have simply quit pressing for signatures once they reached three-quarters of the House and Senate. Back in the summer of 2014, while Israel was slaughtering over 2,000 Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza, the combined chambers of Congress voted unanimously in favor of a resolution affirming Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Not one member of the Black Caucus dissented or abstained. Thus, their tolerance of apartheid Israel’s barbarism is infinite.
But, where do their Black constituents stand on the unholy U.S. alliance with the Zionist state? A poll taken last October by The Economis/YouGov showed only 19 percent of Black Americans thought of Israel as an “ally,” compared to 43 percent of whites and 22 percent of Hispanics. Only 17 percent of Blacks think Israel is a “friendly” country, and just 27 percent of whites and 21 percent of Hispanics see Israel as friendly. Among all races in the U.S,, support for Israel is described as “plummeting” – which is cause for the Israel lobby to organize a letter-signing publicity campaign among the folks whose cowardice or bought-and-paid-for allegiance they can count on: the elected officials of both corporate parties.
“Only 17 percent of Blacks think Israel is a ‘friendly’ country.”
The electoral arrangement in the United States, where half of the duopoly is the White Man’s Party, has created a one-party system for Black America. With nowhere else to go, Black voters can think or feel however they want, but their elected representatives vote according to the wishes of their party’s funders – rich white people, virtually all of them in league with apartheid Israel. The Democratic Party is thus the mechanism for rich white people’s political domination of Black America, the nation’s most left-leaning constituency, including on issues of war and peace, and especially on Israeli apartheid. Black Democrats, with the exception of a handful of dissidents like New York lawmakers Charles and Inez Barron, are agents of forces hostile to the Black community, and enemies of peace. Last year, 75 percent of the Black Caucus voted to make police a protected class, and in 2014, shortly before the unanimous vote in favor of Israel, 80 percent of the Black Caucus voted to continue the multi-billion dollar militarization of local police, through the Pentagon’s infamous 1033 program.
Every member of the Black Caucus should be ousted on grounds of misrepresentation. But the authentic Black political conversation doesn’t travel much beyond the barbershops, beauty parlors and activist circles before it is smothered by the octopus of Black America’s one party Democratic state. That’s why the best thing that can happen this primary election season is for the Democratic Party to implode -- and set its Black and left constituencies free from the agents of rich man’s rule.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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